Sunday, 31 October 2010

Whew! When I sat down and looked at the programme for the second day of Droidcon, I wasn’t sure I’d make it until the end — after I’d finished planning out my time, I saw I’d set myself up over 10 sessions I just couldn’t miss.

I’ve now had a day or so to recover so now I’m posting my notes. I hope they’re useful. Please @ me on twitter or leave a comment here if there’s something you’d like to add or correct.

Android: User views

Ilicco gave the first keynote speech, with some Reuters promotional video to wake us all up.

Getting journalists to use mobile as well as working out how consumers use it

Ilicco spends his time working out how people will use devices before they do

The App Store was not about the apps…

it’s about people

it’s about the edge that people believe they will get from the app

Great apps:
* Google Talk — simply excellent
* The browser: double clicking a column reflows the text as well as zooming in
* Google Music — looking forward to what Google will do here
* Vignette Photo app — just so many more styles that the equivalent iPhone apps
* New keyboards — swype & swiftkey (great to be able to install device-wide improvements)

Android behind the scenes

Karl-Johan Dahlström and Erik Hellman

The afternoon keynote session: Sony Ericsson was very open about their process in designing, building and improving their Android phones. They’ve got some lovely devices (I bought an X10 Mini Pro for my wife) but are currently behind in Android software — their devices run 1.6 and a 2.1 update has only just been announced. However, they seem really committed to the platform going forwards (and they did make the best of a bad job on J2ME…)

Sony Ericsson wanting to be the Android benchmark going forward

have Google base, adding Sony features, then Sony Ericsson design

have teams going out to cities and imbuing culture to identify macro trends

current focus: Human Curvature, Precision by Tension

fits to your body, but precise interaction

X10 Mini inspired by the Cloud Gate in Chicago, a “pure object”:

hardware and software need to harmonise

Now introducing “(Erik) Hellman, version 2.0 of Hellboy” :-)

all products using same source code

contributing all changes back to platform

sony ericsson one of the main contributors to Android Open Source project

decouple apps — signature apps built on top of standard Android Platform

No point setting up an Android forum solely for Sony Ericsson

we should be where you are already, answering questions and providing support

promotions:

have app for the week on local facebook groups

Susanna working for marketing in UK — going out to stores, telling people which apps to demo

Evolving past the fingertip

Lots of proprietary devices coming out that are essentially connected tablets (or could be)

Energy monitors (govt has mandated that we will all get two)

Home health hubs

Android can do their jobs very easily

But it’s much harder on embedded operating systems

putting sensors into everyday objects

blood glucose monitor in toothbrush

thermometer in TV remote control

Bluetooth low energy coming out — new name for WiBree
* connectionless, mostly OFF
* good at small, discrete data transfers
* will appear in phones in middle of 2011
* coin cell will die of old age before bluetooth before it runs out!
* costs about $1 in bulk, size of a fridge magnet
* chips are 5mm square
* not really Bluetooth, just been designed so it’s compatible

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About Me

I make things for mobile, web, voice and LEGO; create all sorts of stuff at Tesco Labs using agile development in any language that fits; run a CodeClub for kids in St Albans.
I blog about mobile stuff, Mac stuff (especially Time Machine), agile stuff and the events I attend.
I am @adamcohenrose on twitter — follow me!